Card Game / Frank Prewett

Card Game

Hearing the whine and crash
We hastened out
And found a few poor men
Lying about.

I put my hand in the breast
Of the first met.
His heart thumped, stopped, and I drew
My hand out wet.

Another, he seemed a boy,
Rolled in the mud
Screaming, "my legs, my legs,"
And he poured out his blood.

We bandaged the rest
And went in,
And started again at our cards
Where we had been.

~~
Frank Prewett (1893-1962)
from Poems, 1921

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Frank Prewett biography